Hogwarts After Midnight
by Sociially-Diisoriiented
Summary: Rose and Scorpius dance together at the Yule Ball, their 10th Hogwarts Reunion. Cue memories of unattainable stars, watered-down butterbeer, and unrequited feelings.
1. Part 1

**[Author's Note]** This story was written for **Marie E. Brooke** as part of the Gift Giving Extravaganza, for the month of May! I'm cutting it very close, lol, but here it is!

This is Part 1 of 3

Please, if you review, have an account with PMs enabled so I can reply!

Thanks to **luvsanime02** for the quick and amazing edit (as always).

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Standing at the top of the Astronomy tower at two in the morning, alone and a little bit chilly, is one of Rose's most distinct memories of her seventh year at Hogwarts. She remembers those moments the best—with the most fondness—because it was then, before she even left the common room for the tower, before she became out of breath from the never-ending, winding stairs, when she was still sitting at her seat in the common room, that she opened her folder and felt the closest to Scorpius.

Her notes were always tucked away neatly in their proper categories—she'd developed her own organizing system in fifth year where she sorted her Astronomy notes by relevant authors, specific keywords, and historical magical impact—despite the fact that she'd fallen asleep on them that morning and stashed them away in a hurry, without any semblance of organization, in order to make it to breakfast, and then class, on time.

Rose grinned and flipped through her notes quickly; some of the parchment papers were wrinkled from where she'd fallen asleep on them that morning, before dragging herself to bed for a quick hour of shuteye before breakfast, but others were written in a handwriting different than hers—Scorpius'.

It was two in the morning, and energy was pumping motivation through her system, but the thought of Scorpius kept Rose slumped in her seat.

She remembers remembering how she'd barely paid any attention to Scorpius all day. Rose had become a nocturnal creature, and during the day her motor functions were as slow as a Troll's wit. All she yearned for was her large, warm bed; instead, she had to force herself to appear coherent through breakfast, classes, and various social interactions she suspected she botched like she'd been hit with a particularly potent Confundus Charm. In the background of all of this was Scorpius, a constant but blurry image whenever Rose thought back on the day.

At night, when her mind was aware and functioning again, Rose vaguely remembered laughing at a joke of his during breakfast (when she was fighting not to fall asleep face-first in her porridge), nodding at something he'd whispered to her in Potions class (what had he said? Rose couldn't remember for the life of her, nor what they'd been brewing), and waving a distracted 'goodnight' over her shoulder as Scorpius left the Ravenclaw common room before curfew, too absorbed in homework she wanted to get out of the way to look up.

Except, at some point during the day, Rose must have told him the day's password to her common room, because Scorpius had obviously snuck in during a free period when Rose had been in her dorm catching up on some much-needed sleep to get her through the second part of the day.

And now, in the dead of the night, Rose didn't have to lose any time making sense of her jumbled notes or of the sentences that trailed off because Scorpius had taken care of all of that. He'd finished her sentences, completed her latest constellation chart, and had even corrected her spelling and terrible grammar.

The common room was empty at this time of night, but Scorpius' presence seemed to fill the silence around her, and the strongest urge to hug him overtook Rose so completely that she flipped her folder shut and hugged it tightly, afraid that if she didn't apply pressure to her chest her heart would shatter.

The urge to cry clawed at her throat. Rose knew she could never tell Scorpius how she truly felt about him. She wasn't trying to use him, but how else could it seem to him when they barely hung out anymore? Rose had put Astronomy before her friends, her other classes, even her health—giving up love was just another consequence of her obsession.

Eventually, Rose pulled herself together. She put her folder down on the table, wiped at her dry eyes, and took a few deep and steady breaths. She looked at the mess on her desk—an unstable stack of scrolls of blank parchment, an array of unscrewed bottles of ink and old quills, her discarded and still unfinished homework, and a stack of dog-eared textbooks which she'd arranged to keep her wand propped up so the light from her illumination spell fell on the work in front of her.

Rose knew what others said about her, but hers was the only cozy desk in the common room. All the other desks were always left empty; Ravenclaws had no qualms about dumping work left by another on the floor to use the space. But, somehow, despite being the messiest Ravenclaw in history, Rose had made a reputation for herself with what others had dubbed her 'midnight subject'—always leaving her work on the desk, too tired to clean up after herself—and it had become an unspoken agreement that this was her spot, and no one else messed with it.

Rose grabbed a roll of parchment and tore a piece off one corner. In her characteristically messy scrawl of someone who has more ideas than time to write them down, she scribbled " _Thank you_." She added a heart, but immediately grabbed her wand and cast an erasing spell on it; she dashed in some x's and o's, but after a moment of hesitation, erased those as well; finally, she dabbed in two dots side by side and a curved line underneath, accompanied by an exclamation mark. Then, she spelled it to fix to her folder where she knew Scorpius would see it the next morning.

In those moments, Rose remembers her self-loathing at being such a coward, promising herself that next time she'd do it—she'd confess her feelings in those daily notes of understated gratitude. Rose stood then, grabbing her folder and rushing out of the common room door. As she headed to the Astronomy Tower to watch the stars—alone and a bit chilly, but with Scorpius closer to her heart than ever—adrenaline rushed her steps, convinced that tonight would be different, that the note would be one word longer than the usual two.

But it never was.


	2. Part 2

Scorpius remembers thinking of her while sitting on the Quidditch pitch, a mug half-filled with Butterbeer sloshing around to the rhythm of his thoughts: her nose and eyes wrinkling in laughter; the vibrancy of her wavy red hair she keeps headbanded out of her eyes; the kindness of her spirit; the curiosity of her soul.

He remembers thinking of her on their last night at Hogwarts before the dreaded summer, wishing he could be with her, but knowing she'd been looking forward to this lunar eclipse for 7 months now. He let her go with his blessing, knowing the charms set up by Professor McGonagall would prevent him from joining her at the top of the tower, in case this was just a ploy to spend the last night alone with a boy without authorization under the stars. He could still feel the soft warm dryness of her lips on his cheek before she'd dashed away.

So he'd joined another group of Gryffindors for a last night of delinquency—a pint of Butterbeer on the Quidditch pitch after curfew.

Except the Butterbeer had been watered-down so there was enough to go around for all of them (even with the pool, Longbottom had only been able to afford two cases of six), and Scorpius was only just being tentatively accepted and sat at the edge of the group, tolerated enough to absorb the good cheers and jokes but to actually participate in them, mainly left to his own thoughts.

Which drifted back to her, of course.

Scorpius remembers thinking back on finding her slumped over her desk on the night before the first of their O.W.L. exams, just a few weeks ago. She was sprawled over a stack of papers—Astronomy homework, it had first appeared to be to Scorpius—snoring lightly whenever she exhaled. He'd only just gone away a moment to get a glass of water, and he'd come back to see her like this. He thought she'd been studying for the next day, but this wasn't the exam subject. Scorpius had thought she'd looked a little tired, but it was early in the night still—barely 11pm—and yet she was already out like a light, as though she'd been up several nights in a row and couldn't take it anymore. Scorpius had carefully pulled the papers out from under her. There looked to be several weeks of notes in his hands.

Just then, Rose had stirred, and in his panic Scorpius shoved the scrolls under his own work. But Rose had only exhaled more loudly and settled. A few minutes later, she got up, rubbed her eyes, muttered an unintelligible moan of goodnight, and stumbled up the stairs to her dormitory.

Scorpius had looked over the scrolls in his free time the next day—during the lull between exams, while Rose had slipped off for a quick nap—wondering when she had found the time to sketch all of these incredibly-detailed constellation charts. There were also scrolls upon scrolls of notes on different topics, though all related to astrology and astronomy as far as Scorpius could tell, even the historical ones— _when_ Scorpius could tell, since the handwritings were not always steady or articulate. Some sentences trailed off, never to be resumed; some sentence repeated; some sentences even overlapped. Scorpius made sense as best as he could of the notes, correcting mistakes as he saw them, spelling in his own words to complete some ideas, and using a formatting spell to detach some sentences and make sense of the paragraph. Then, he'd sorted the scrolls into piles of relevance and had re-sorted them into an order he thought Rose would understand and appreciate—relevant authors, specific keywords, and historical magical impact. Then he'd slipped the lot back into Rose's things in its own folder, hoping she wouldn't realize he'd snooped.

Now, there he was, he remembers remembering, alone in a crowd, sitting sipping Butterbeer under the unattainable stars, while Rose was up there in the sky with them and not with him, feeling like a fool, completely in love with her.


	3. Part 3

**[author's note]** Here is Part 3 of 3! I hope you guys enjoy this part, as well as the story as a whole.

I do have one sort of warning/disclaimer to post here and that is that **this fic is experimental.** I played with grammar and narration here to try and evoke differen't aspects. My intentions was to make this a fic you had **to read into** to fully understand. I tried not to say anything outright, but to explain it all through the characters' actions as well as through my choice of word, flow and narration style.

I won't be revealing my thoughts behind my choices, because I'd like to hear how you all interpreted the fic, but I would like to make it clear that the lack of transitions between character perspectives was intentional (omniscient narrator), as were the constant shifts between past and present tense (dynamic timeline). That's all I will say...please let me know how your interpreted this fic...did it work or not for you, and why (or how)? Detailed, constructive reviews work best for this ;)

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Rose had almost not gone to the Yule Ball because Scorpius had owled her back saying he had a meeting on that evening and may not be able to attend, and showing up with a friend was nowhere near as bad as showing up without a date.

She told herself that she didn't care what people said about her—the Weasley-Granger showing up without a date? Maybe being intelligent, rich, and famous wasn't all that after all—but she almost had.

In the end, Rose decided to go because her mum had almost not gone to her Yule Ball and look at what _she_ had almost missed out on—"an incredible amount of U.S.T.", as her dad would so often mouth to her, thinking Rose and Hugo were morons who couldn't read enunciated lip-speak. Of course, her parents had been teens then, and she was almost twenty-eight years old.

Rose stands there now, wearing navy-blue polka-dotted dress robes, and spots Scorpius from across the room.

Scorpius had almost not gone to the Yule Ball, too scared to go and see Rose with her date, so he had replied to her owl with a bogus meeting story. He'd thought about going anyway, at first, but his dad had laughed when he'd admitted to thinking of confessing his feelings to Rose. And so, he'd lied to her instead and almost not gone.

In the end, Scorpius decided to go because his mother Floo-called to tell him of the time _she'd_ asked his father to marry _her_ at her Yule Ball—of course, she'd been drunk, and they'd been betrothed for twenty-seven years already. But Scorpius has been Rose's best friend for fifteen and in love with her for eleven, so that has to count for something, right?

Scorpius stands there now, under the multi-colored _Yule Ball: Year of 2024's 10th Hogwarts Reunion_ poster, trying to pretend he hasn't just seen a flash of fire-red hair enter the Great Hall.

They navigate the room, each on their own side, letting lost-long acquaintances pull them into heedless chatter of their current lives:

Rose lets her old classmates show off their connections to their parents or significant others. She tells them "Head Astronomer at the Institute of the Magical Cosmos" when they ask her what she does now, and she laughs along when they ask a genuine question behind their sarcastic façade of "Oh… what _is it_ they do there again? Hahaha;"

Scorpius nods as former Quidditch teammates, long forgotten about, come up to joke and reminisce about long-gone games—especially the victory parties and the fights. He scratches his neck before discreetly tipping a finger in Rose's direction when they ask him, "Who' y' 're here with?", and chuckles tersely when they hoot-call him. "Still? They keep _that_ pretty hush-shush in the _D.P._ , huh?"

Eventually, Scorpius turns and there she is. As radiant as a white sky with navy-blue polka-dotted stars. She looks like she's there alone, too.

"Scorpius! You're here?"

"Y—Yes." Scorpius tells himself to straighten up and to stop looking around for a guy. "The meeting had to be postponed. Can't say much."

"Right." Rose pretends she has to fix her hair as she takes in Scorpius' choice of attire and tries not to laugh. Scorpius is dressed in a Muggle tuxedo-or 'tuxed-up,' as Rose has heard it is called now. "But you're here…."

Scorpius hears a soft tilting note to the end of Rose's words that he thinks is a hint of sadness. "You're here alone? Not with Simon?"

Rose wants to die, so she settles for looking at everyone around her but Scorpius. "Yeah. We broke up, actually—last night; I tried to Floo-call you, but—"

"Oh! Yeah, I was at Mum's. Merlin, Rose, I'm so sorry." Scorpius feels like an ass for having lied to her, now.

"Oh, gosh, don't be; I ended it." Rose can't express how much further from her thoughts Simon could be right now.

Scorpius hesitates; he wants to be the supportive friend, but he so couldn't care less about poor shit-faced Simon who'd—Thank _Merlin_ —finally gotten the boot. "Right. Okay… W-well… Want to dance? I mean, unless you have friends to see…" Scorpius waves blindly around him and smacks a former Ravenclaw in the back of the head. "Oh, sorry, McFurllen…"

Rose laughs. "Ye—I mean, no friends, yes drend—dance. I mean"—Rose inhales deeply, feeling like a fool— "Yes, Scorpius, I'd love a dance with you."

They dance slowly, Rose's head on Scorpius' shoulder, Scorpius' hand on the back of her waist. In that instant, only one moment replays like a lingering nightmare in their minds:

Rose remembers the starry nights at two in the morning, alone and a bit chilly, at the top of the Astronomy tower, looking up at the sky and thinking of Scorpius. She knows now, how laughable it was to think she could ever be Scorpius' type;

Scorpius remembers sitting on the Quidditch pitch in fifth-year, a mug of half-Butterbeer sloshing around to the rhythm of his thoughts, thinking of her again, because that's all he'd done for the rest of his two years at Hogwarts. He knows now, all he'd done since that fatal night was to gravitate towards her like the ocean to the moon's pull.

The song ends, and they step away from each other, and see in each other's eyes an expression they can't quite read.

"Well, that was nice…" Scorpius says, clearing his voice and turning to the band playing, clapping softly. He is already pushing the memory to the back of his mind where it never leaves, but that he always feels, softly echoing in his body whenever he thinks of or sees Rose.

But, this time, Rose can't push the thought away, and something she hasn't felt since her studious nights picking up a folder sneaks back into her heart and shatters. "I need to go out." The words leave her like a soft exhale of air.

Scorpius' head snaps back in her direction, having heard her voice tilt and fall. But Rose is already on her way to the entrance doors. Has Rose only come because of some lunar event? It has always been like Rose to be so… efficient. A slimy snake slides up Scorpius' thigh and sinks its teeth into his flesh. Indignity fires Scorpius' steps towards her.

"Wait, Rose, hold up—" Rose's face is unlike anything Scorpius has ever seen before, tight and angry at first when he grabs her arm and spins her around, but then relaxes immediately into something much more lax than he has ever seen, and soft—desperation.

Desperate for Scorpius to get it together this time, he thinks.

"—What?" Her whisper is a whip to his ears.

Scorpius hesitates and bites back his words. "Hold up… Don't go far. I'll meet you outside."

Rose watches Scorpius dash away, and she knows she's done it again—she's pushed Scorpius away, although this time it was when she was lost in thoughts of him. She has to bite her lip not to cry as she watches Scorpius dash off. She'd always hated his other friends and envied them for their time with Scorpius while she lived life adjacently to theirs, never being able to partake in these moments with him.

But, he did say he'd come this time.

Rose turns towards the door. She will have to think of some astronomical event taking place tonight so Scorpius doesn't suspect anything.

She smiles, a high-pitched giggle escaping her lips; she's never watched the stars with Scorpius before.

This is how Scorpius finds her when he passes Hogwarts' threshold, sitting silently staring up at the stars on the warm stony steps of Hogwarts.

"Here." He tries to balance two mugs full of Butterbeer as he sits down.

Closing her hand around one of the mugs, Rose laughs as she sloshes foam all over her fingers.

"So, what's going on with the sky tonight?" Scorpius asks what he thinks she wants to hear.

Rose turns her head towards him. He's taking a sip of his Butterbeer, his head tilted upwards to the sky. He looks beautiful, Rose thinks, so fully and so completely that she says, "I'm so in love with you," instead of lying.

Scorpius turns to her and does what he's always wanted to do: he stops pretending—he leans forward and kisses her.

Scorpius kisses her, and Rose laughs. She puts a hand to his nape and whispers, "I've wanted you to do that for so long."

"Oh?" Scorpius laughs foolishly against her lips.

She kisses him, and then again.

She presses her forehead against his and sighs. "It's the third sighting of Nge Moon in Kenya."

"What, in East Africa?"

Rose giggles and bites her lip and laughs. "Yeah."

"Well… let's go!"

Rose laughs. "What—really?"

Scorpius laughs and pulls her close to him. "Why not? I mean, we have all night, right? Why don't you tell me about it, first?"

And so, she does.

It's after midnight at Hogwarts, and Rose and Scorpius will always remember their night under the stars, clothes dampened by spilt Butterbeer, completely in love.


End file.
